Saturday, May 3, 2008

The eggplant is not one of my favorite vegetables. I rarely buy one and when I do, I end up making the one dish I am most familiar with- baingan bharta. I recently bought home a few baby eggplants with the intention of trying out something else for a change. As always, I looked toward Taste of India for some much needed inspiration and it came to me in the form of thesetwo wonderful pitlai recipes. Pitlai, I understand, is a very popular preparation in the Tamil Brahmin community. This is how I made it.

Method:Cook the eggplant cubes with some salt in the tamarind extract. Add the jaggery. Cook till eggplants are soft.Add the roasted and ground spice mixture to the cooked eggplants and cook on medium heat for 2-4 minutes.

Add the cooked dal to the above mixture. Add desired amounts of water depending on the consistency required. Cook for 5 minutes or so. Bring to a boil and turn off the heat.

In a small pan, heat the oil and add all the ingredients for seasoning. Pour the seasoned oil over the pitla.

Lovely recipe. Bookmarked it gonna try this soon. As you said I am also familiar only with baigan-bartha I've been surfing lot of brinjal recipes recently I think I got one here. Recipe is really very Nice.

I just stumbled upon your blog and think it is an excellent read for foodies and especially like the photos and design of the blog.I started off as a blogger myself and realise the importance of a good clean design like you have here. I have now bookmarked it for myself to read and have added you to our new list of "all the food blogs in the world" on www.ifoods.tv which we have been compiling for the last month! Hopefully it will send you some traffic in the long run. Looking forward to reading your thoughts on food so keep up the good work and talk soon. Cheers

Love your pictures TBC... I know i've missed a lot of posts but the pics of the tomatillo and the stack of pancakes - absolutely brilliant. I like pitlais but haven't tried with eggplant.. will keep it in mind.

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The recipes you see here are ones that have worked for me in my kitchen and have been tailored to suit my palate. There is no guarantee that it would do the same for you. Please use my recipes merely as guidelines and feel free to adapt it to cater to your needs.